Bend the Bracket
by Digital Tempest
Summary: What if Paige hadn't followed Kevin's advice, leaving her path to happiness much rougher than it should be? Rating may go up later for mature themes. Discontinued for now.
1. Normalcy

**Title:** Bend the Bracket  
**Author:** Tempest  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own any characters recognizable from Degrassi. I will have all characters returned to sender in a timely fashion. I make no money off these works. No copyright infringement intended.  
**Spoilers:** 5.11-5.12: The Lexicon of Love  
**Dedication:** To ShastyMcNasty and RnbwRvrGrl, thanks for all your encouragement and input.

**1. **

Paige walked into the classroom, clutching her books to her chest, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. She knew they were all looking at her. By now, everyone had heard about the infamous kiss, and she wasn't ready to handle their stares or their smirks. Before class, she'd passed by a couple of Juniors, and she'd heard one of them whisper to her friends. "Have you heard? Little Miss Perfect is a dyke."

It nearly made her freeze in her tracks, and it had taken every ounce of willpower not to turn around and slap the girl. But she wouldn't give the girl the satisfaction of knowing she'd gotten under her skin. If she just continued to act normal, the rumors would eventually die down, and life would be as it always was.

Normalcy was something that Paige has always craved, something that she needed in her life to make it stable. She didn't like the unknown, not knowing what the next step would lead to. She needed things to be ordered in her life; she needed to know what happened next. She tried to make all her decisions carefully so that they followed this order.

She mapped out her life from beginning to end, and when someone threw a monkey wrench in her plans, she modified the plans until she was back on track again. This was how life was supposed to be for her. There were supposed to be no indefinites in her future. Even the thought of not knowing what happened next left her clamoring mentally.

She worked hard to maintain this sense of stability. She made sure that she always gave the illusion that her life was perfect, and it would always be perfect. She always made the "perfect" grades, had plans to go to the "perfect" college. She'd always surrounded herself with the "perfect" friends, those who shared the same ambitions. She shunned those who didn't share her outlook on life, using them as a medium of everything she didn't want in her life.

Then, she allowed Alex to get a little too close. She'd always despised Alex, considered her less than herself. Maybe, it was because she was a little jealous of Alex—her freedom, her fearlessness, her outspokenness. Alex was everything Paige was not. Alex's life was one big unknown, and she didn't seem to fear that at all.

Then, she'd learned that Alex wasn't so awful. She wasn't the three-headed monster that she always made her out to be. She just followed the beat of her own drum. She was always true to herself. Something that she'd learn from the circumstances that life had thrown at her. And Paige had come to admire that in her.

But she couldn't let herself love Alex for it. She refused to let herself feel any iota of emotion for Alex that proved to be more than friendly. She tried to reason to herself that her attraction to Alex stemmed from the electrified emotions flooding the air that night. The excitement of the movie premiere had left them all a little inebriated on exhilaration and still reeling the next day when she kissed Alex again.

When she'd talked to Kevin about Alex, his words had empowered her, made her feel like nothing in the world was more important than that moment with Alex. However, when she went to Alex's apartment complex, she found herself churning negative thoughts in her mind, and she lost her nerve. This could not be. She was supposed to grow old with her Prince Charming, not Alex Nuñez.

There had been several complications in her life that left her feeling numb, but Alex wasn't one of them. Alex made her happy, but Alex left her uncertain and afraid. Her feelings for Alex disturbed her, made her fear that this would ruin her "perfect" future. She needed normalcy, but at the same time, she knew that she needed Alex, as well.

As much as she wanted, she could not make herself walk up those stairs and say the things she needed to say to Alex, though. Her pride, her fear of the unknown, wouldn't let her. And she'd walked away with her head held in defeat, convinced that she'd ruined the only opportunity that she'd had at happiness with someone she cared for deeply.

Hazel sat down beside Paige almost reluctantly, bringing Paige out of her thoughts, and Paige felt like telling her not to bother at all. She considered Hazel her best friend, but since the Alex incident, Paige found herself questioning their friendship. Hazel had always been there for her through everything good or bad. Hazel didn't seem so certain about her, now, and Paige wondered if Hazel would even acknowledge her at all if she really were gay.

Would Hazel have stood with her if she'd chosen Alex? Would she have understood, stared down the naysayers in the name of friendship? Or was the threat of a marred reputation worth more than years of friendship? They accepted Marco and her brother, but she knew that this was different. Marco's sexual preference wasn't a reflection of Hazel, but the rumor mill would turn furiously about Hazel and Paige.

She could almost see the pleading in Hazel's eyes for Paige to preserve their reputation, to deny Alex if the feelings were there. This was the most important part of their life, the pinnacle of their high school career, and Paige threatened to ruin it all by being with Alex. What kind of respect could they hope to garner if Paige and Alex were together?

Her conversations with Hazel were strained and awkward these days. She missed the days when she could tell Hazel anything, but now, she felt she hid more from her than she shared. She wanted to believe that this awkwardness would pass, and they would be thick as thieves, enjoying their final year in Degrassi.

She was confident that they could overcome this obstacle, and everything would end _perfectly_.

- - -

**Author's Notes:** All I can say is the people reading my stories in other fandoms are going to kill me! A new story means even slower updates in everything. Fun times! I'm not the fastest updater in the world, but I'll try not to make you wait too long for the next chapter. The rating for this will probably go up in later chapters for mature themes. I know this chapter wasn't long, but it's more of introduction than anything.


	2. Happiness

**2.**

Alex wasn't accustomed to much happiness. After all, she'd spent most of her life fighting off her mother's drunken boyfriends and being reminded by others how pathetic her life really was. She knew all of the cities shelters more intimately than most, but on those nights when she was forced to sleep on a threadbare cot, she reminded herself that things could be worse.

She did all right for herself, considering the circumstances. She wasn't suicidal, she didn't do "hard" drugs, and she wasn't crazy. She liked to party, and maybe, she smoked too much weed, but she didn't think she was out of control like those kids you always saw on talk shows. She knew her life was going nowhere fast, and sometimes, she felt helpless to stop it. But her life wasn't in complete shambles, _yet_.

She never had many _close_ friends in her life. Most of her friends consisted of people not much better off than herself. They all knew what the dimmer side of life was like, what it was like to do without. This was the bond between them, but she never considered herself close to any of them. They didn't have much in common aside from the fact that they came from the "wrong side."

They hung out because that's what people expected from them. They were the sad cases, and they were banned to their own useless caste. While most of the kids at Degrassi worried about what college to apply to, her friends, herself included, worried about where their next meal would come from. Would they even be sleeping in their own bed that night?

She believed that this is what attracted her to Jay. Life was hard for them; they were the same. At least, that's what he always told her, and she believed him. She was the "baddest" bitch in the whole school, he was the biggest badass that Degrassi had ever seen, and together they would set the world on fire.

And she'd eaten up every word of it, believed that Jay was what love was all about, until she found out he was letting any slut with a mouth choke on his dick. She'd been so angry that she confronted some of the girls, leaving quite a few of them with black eyes for their effort and leaving herself with swollen knuckles for her trouble.

Then, she'd reevaluated her relationship with Jay and realized that that wasn't love. No, he was the fast path to becoming her mother and Chad. She never held any illusions about her life becoming some Cinderella, happily ever after story, but she knew she did not want to become her mother. Her relationship with her mother was a complicated one.

Something was missing from her relationship with her mother, something that left her hollow, something that made her come home late most nights and made her rise early in the mornings just so she wouldn't have to see her mother's face. She knew that they didn't act like normal mothers and daughters, whatever "normal" may be.

She could handle the fact that maybe her mother didn't love her. Her mother's numerous boyfriends and alcohol had ebbed away at any relationship they might've shared. It used to eat away at her thoughts like some kind of emotional cancer, but over the years, she'd come to terms with that. At least, she liked to believe that she had come to terms with it.

What bothered her about her mother was her depraved indifference. The fact that her mother didn't care about her one way or another, now, _that_ hurt. The fact that her mother didn't show one iota of emotion toward her when they were alone, _that_ hurt. The fact that when her mother looked at her with cold, lifeless eyes, that all Alex could see was her own reflection in them, _that_ hurt.

No, her mother didn't love her. Maybe she one time, once upon a time, she had. But she didn't love her now, nor did she care. Alex would have even accepted the cruelty that comes with hatred, the cutting words, the stinging hands. At least, then, she would know that her mother felt something for her. It would've been a warm welcome to the empty, chilly feeling that circled her mother like a dark shroud.

Her mother didn't hate her, either, though. To her mother, she was just there. Her mother had used all her love up on trifling shit, on keeping one deadbeat man after the next. She had to give her mother some credit, though. She'd been with Chad for some years now. Alex could remember the days when one man after another paraded through their door like some kind of testosterone showcase.

But just as the ones that had come before, Chad was no good for her mother. He could barely hang on to a job. Alcohol made him mean, and her mother was the one who suffered the upshot. He smirked a lot and believed that he was God's gift. He had a mouth like a trash can and his manners weren't much better. He made their lives miserable, and her mother loved him to death.

While she didn't believe that her mother cared for her, she still felt a sense of loyalty to her, and she found herself on the receiving end of a biting backhand many times when she'd tried to help her. She never wanted to be damned to her mother's sentence, and she would do whatever she needed to do to avoid it. She may not get far in her life, but she wouldn't waste it with a jackass like Chad.

For all the problems she had in her life, it would be easy to say that she wanted someone else's life, that maybe she felt that she was entitled to a little joy. She didn't want anyone else's life, though. She just wanted her own to be happy for a change.

And the primo step to that happiness had come in the form on Paige Michalchuk, as funny as that was. Paige was her antithesis. Paige was everything she was not, had everything she would never have. She had the perfect family, the perfect friends, the perfect life. She'd even had her sights set on the perfect college until Alex ruined it for her, proving once again that she was trouble.

She never saw herself becoming friends with Paige; she never predicted that one day Paige would be the person who made her want to be better, who inspired hope in her; she never thought that one day Paige would be the person that she would want to be with.

She didn't know what was truly going through her mind that night she kissed Paige. Her mind was jumbled with so many emotions that night, and the only thing that seemed right was kissing Paige. The minute their lips touched, she knew it _was_ right, that she hadn't made a mistake. She knew from that moment on that she would always give Paige whatever she had to give.

Paige, however, hadn't been so sure. Her uncertainty had left Alex on the defense, hiding behind scathing sarcasm and judicious insecurity. Confusion left her to wonder why Paige hadn't felt how right it was. She hadn't imagined Paige kissing her back or the way their lips meshed, supple and soft, like fine silk. Then, they talked and Paige kissed her, and for a moment, she thought she had nothing to worry about.

But there was still a encumbrance that went by the name Jay, who had no qualms in hindering Alex's happiness. He never took kindly to rejection, and he couldn't wait to share his newest piece of information. In one day, they went through a series of ups and downs that ultimately ended with them going their separate ways. Happiness snatched away before it was truly savored.

Paige proved that her status in life was more important than what they felt for each other. She verified that every time she walked down the halls of Degrassi and turned her eyes away from Alex.

The two had become something of a spectacle to the others. Every time it was evident that their paths would cross, the world seemed to stop to see what would happen between the two. Whenever they passed each other in the hallway, curious eyes would follow them, waiting to see what would transpire. Nothing ever did, though. They would barely brush each other shoulders.

Paige wouldn't even look her in the eye, making her feel less than worthless, and she would fight the impulse to grab Paige's shoulders and shake her until she looked at her. And Jay would always be there, whispering in her ear, like a slithering snake, "She never liked you, anyway."

She was never one to believe in fate or destiny, but she was trying to believe that fate would lead them back together.

- - -

**Author's Notes:** All author's notes for this story can be read on my ffnet forum, "author's notes," which also contains answers to reviews, etc.


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